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Asia-Pacific Development Journal

The Asia-Pacific Development Journal (APDJ) is published twice a year by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. The primary objective of the APDJ is to provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge, experience, ideas, information and data on all aspects of economic and social development issues and concerns facing the region and aims to stimulate policy debate and assist policy formulation. The APDJ provides a scholarly means for bringing together research work by eminent social scientists and development practitioners from the region and beyond for use by a variety of stakeholders. The Journal aims to stimulate policy debate and assist policy formulation in the region.

Investment and economic opportunities: Urbanization, infrastructure and Governance in the North and South of India

There are substantial disparities across the southern Indian and northern (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) states in terms of fundamental economic phenomena, such as per capita net state domestic product, rural and urban poverty rates, and investment flows, with the southern states taking a lead over their northern counterparts. In this paper, we make an attempt to understand what factors have caused some states to grow faster than others. We examine human capabilities, skills and awareness, resources and the efficiency of their utilization, extent of urbanization, good governance including law and order, and infrastructure across the two group of states. We conclude that the upward shift in per capita income, downward trend in poverty reduction and investment flows that occurred in the south relative to that in the northern states can be explained partly by the advantage the former had in terms of human capabilities, infrastructure, urbanization and some law and order conditions and partly by the economic liberalization of 1991.